Due for release in June over in Japan and later this year in North America, Bandai Namco’s Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is fast becoming one of the most anticipated Wii games of 2008. Now the company has spoken out on various topics related to the new RPG.

Speaking in an interview with UK website Cubed³, Teruaki Konishi-san, the Producer of the new Tales RPG stated that the reason behind sticking with the Symphonia storyline was a decision the team made due to how the original Tales of Symphonia was very well received both by Japanese fans and those overseas. The team felt that the characters were strong in terms of both personality and design and how the enchanting world was crafted help to make it a critical success with fans and media alike.

The aim with Dawn of the New World was to create the same world as Symphonia, allowing fans to feel comfortable in the new game, playing with their favourite characters from before and see what has happened to the rest of the cast. In the same breath, the idea of bringing a new Tales adventure to Wii was seen as the best way to show appreciation to the fans.

With regards to how the in-game world has changed since Symphonia on the GameCube and whether or not there are to be many surprises for fans of the original, the following was said:

Teruaki Konishi-san, Producer: “From the visual aspect all the character models have been remodelled with a more realistic body proportion. Taking advantage of the more powerful new hardware, the background textures for all towns and dungeons were all newly created, allowing for higher quality visuals and a much more sophisticated game overall.

“Another big addition to the game is the ability for players to tame monsters. Not only will monsters be able to fight along side the player, but the monsters can also evolve into more powerful monsters with new skills and abilities as they gain experience.”

After taking a look at the initial revelation of Dawn of the New World, it became apparent that the traditional overworld had been dropped in favour of a point-and-click map and, as Teruaki Konishi-san explains, there are many reasons for this choice. Considering Dawn of the New World is being released on Wii, the team wanted to take advantage of the Wii remote’s motion control set-up, yet not compromise the unique gameplay that the Tales series is known for. Therefore, the point-and-click approach seemed most logical. The other factor was the limitations of the production schedule. Yet the major factor had to be how “the new, more compact interface would allow the game to flow between story-telling and battles much smoother, creating a much better experience on for our players.” There was a fear, as well, of over-doing the the motion sensor control in the game, thus impacting adversely on the deep, fast-paced, action-packed battle system. Therefore, a conscious decision was made to not force players to swing the Wii remote endlessly. The alternative was to stay true to the action-packed battle system by utilising the motion control to activate shortcut commands during battles.

On the topic of the new battle system that is included, Konishi-san said:

“The battle system is based around the Free Run System, which has been the basic system for all of our recent Tales games. For Dawn of the New World, we’ve introduced a new system called the “Elemental Grid”. The Elemental Grid allows the player to affect the dominant element of the battle field depending on the skills they use. The dominant element affects everything from the effectiveness of the character’s attacks, to which characters will participate in Unison Attacks, to whether the player can tame enemy monsters at the end of each battle.”

Other than this, a few other points raised about the Wii game include:

• There will be no WiiConnect24 or Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection functions? included;
• As well as Collette and Lloyd returning from the first game, all of the other characters from the original Tales of Symphonia will make their own unique appearance in the game;
• Cooking will be making a return, with the this side tying in with the new monster system, with certain dishes helping to evolve obtained monsters;
• The popular skits will be making a comeback, remaining faithful to the series’ heritage;
• Guild-based side-quests also make a return, with players able to head to the Neko-nin Guild and choose from a list of available quests, as well as manage their set of monsters there.

Finally, considering Hideo Baba-san hinted last year that a WiiWare Tales might arrive at some point, this was brought up again and clarified by the same man, with him saying that “WiiWare is one of the potential platforms that we are evaluating. With that said, we can’t promise that this statement will automatically mean that there are immediate plans in the near future for a download service.”

Be sure to read the full interview over on Cubed³ for more details and stick around for more updates here on Nintendic throughout the day…